This is a very predictable Gothic romance, but nonetheless a good one. It's set in London and Yorkshire in the 1840s, when women were the property of their husbands and had no recourse if caught in a bad marital situation. Such a fate ensnares our 17-year-old heroine Lucy, but the young man she met prior to her marriage reappears to explain her husband's behavior and remonstrate with him. There's a satisfactory ending.

Lucy's a little anachronistic in that she's got some feminist leanings long before Simone de Beauvoir and Gloria Steinem were born, but it's a good read. ( )

Kirkus Reviews Poor -- that is rich -- little Lucy is married off to a sepulchral Baron Clare in spite of her own disinclinations and the warnings of Jonathan, a solicitor's clerk, who awakens her to the issues of child labor and women's rights -- perhaps more. But during her lonely time at the Baron's Greygallows -- only servants and a ghost are about -- Clare keeps his distance from her (not her money) and you'll be hard put to guess what he won't think of next. Victorian Gothic, to be taken with that grain of smelling salts.
(Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 1972)
Not knowing the past of her charming and handsome suitor, Lucy Cartwright accepts his marriage proposal. Innocently following Baron Clare to his estate, Lucy has no idea that he is leading her into a world of betrayal and danger. Suddenly she realizes the man of her fondest dreams has become the source of her worst nightmares, and she must devise a way out ( )